RUSSIA: A Red-Letter Day

Nov. 7, 1923, sixth anniversary of the Russian Bolshevik revolution, was celebrated in Moscow by a great review, with tens of thousands of soldiers marching through Red Square. There were brass bands; hundreds of children, on trucks, sang the Internationale as small Italian boys now sing Giovinezza.

According to observers, the equipment, appearance and discipline of the Russian infantry continues to improve and is equal to that of the Polish infantry. But in cavalry and artillery the Red Army is still at a disadvantage compared with their Catholic neighbors to the West.

War Lord Léon Trotzky, confined to his apartment by the grippe, contributed to the day a suitable apocalyptic utterance: ” The seventh year after our revolution opens amid grim forebodings. In six days, says the old Bible story, the world was created and the seventh was a day of rest. After six years of bloodshed and superhuman effort to build up a new world, the seventh year lies before us. But it is not a year of rest. It is a year of great and passionate struggle, of unheard heroism and unprecedented sacrifice on the road to victory. As such we salute it.”